Today is officially the first day for my blogoversary celebration! For the next NINE days, I’ll be sharing guest posts with a huge giveaway on the last day after a post shared by me. Keep track of all the posts in order to enter the huge giveaway at the end!
The topic of each blogoversary quest post is How did you discover book blogging/how has it changed you?
Our first guest is Nikki of The Paper Sea! Her guest post starts below:
I can’t remember the moment I first discovered the book blogging community. I regret that, because this community has changed me so dramatically since I entered it. But then, hindsight is a wonderful thing, and I wouldn’t have known on that day, when I first stumbled across a book blog, just how much the book blogosphere would come to mean so much and become so much a part of me.
I have always been a reader. The highlights of my childhood that are told again and again at family gatherings are those of me reading the dictionary at three and demanding books in place of toys. My sister would want to go to Toys R Us; me, I would insist on the bookstore. The memories from my childhood that are clearest to me mostly involve the Harry Potter books: reading The Philosopher’s Stone in school, to my teacher’s surprise; reading in the armchair and almost finishing Goblet of Fire in one sitting; attending a midnight release event for Order of the Phoenix and staying up until two in the morning reading just one more chapter.
All of this to say, books have been a part of me since I was very young. There was a period of two or three years where I didn’t read at all, bogged down by school coursework and exams. But books found their way back to me, and I’m reading more than I ever have.
Despite that, I’d never really thought about book blogging before. The closest I came to it was one of those Moleskine reading journals. I’d tried my hand at beauty blogging very briefly (expensive hobby, that, much more so than book blogging) but still, blogging about books never crossed my mind. And then that day that I can’t remember happened.
I know it didn’t come with this huge epiphany, so I’m led to believe that I must have just been Googling for reviews of thd book I was reading. If you’ve ever done that you know you end up with more blog results than professional reviews. So I checked one out. I could be wrong, but I think the first book blog I ever found was Radiant Shadows by Kelly (who now blogs at Pretty Little Reader). I read the review and moved on. I must have.
But somehow, one thing led to another and I decided that blogging would be a good way to keep track of my thoughts about the books I read, and thus I created a blog called Fleeting Days. It lasted about three months before I became overwhelmed by trying to blog and keep on top of university at the same time and I closed it down.
But that brief foray into the book blogosphere stuck in my mind all the way through my final year and I knew that when university was over I would be book blogging again. After months of planning and preparation, The Paper Sea was born, and you know the story since.
I know it seems a bit dramatic to claim that blogging has changed me, but it truly has. I’ve always been one of those people who have an interest in everything. I was a straight A student across the board, so when it came to choosing my degree and potential career, nothing stood out. I was in most extracurricular clubs, from sport to creative writing to more.
Like all my other personal projects, I expected to give up blogging after a few months, flit away to something new. But in June, I celebrate my one-year blogoversary! It’s crazy. Somehow, blogging has touched me enough to overcome the obstacles all those other endeavours couldn’t.
Blogging has given me something to be passionate about; it’s given me a focus. I have something I enjoy doing and spending time on now, instead of just trying to pass the day away and avoid boredom. Yes, through blogging I have also made some great friends, and that’s truly appreciated. But blogging has given my life a kind of meaning.
And for that I can’t be more grateful.
Wasn’t that a lovely post? Yay to Nikki for celebrating her one year blogoversary soon! Be sure to check the blog next week for the huge giveaway!
